August 10, 2017How Facebook fuels FOMO

When I open up Facebook I have gazillions of notifications, and it’s pretty clear that these are in Facebook’s – and not in my – interest:

Facebook tells me my friends are interested in going to events. While this information comes to no surprise, it’s the fact that I get alerted about it, which turns this into a FOMO trigger.

Today I was informed that a couple of my contacts “are interested in going to an event in Cape Town tomorrow”. What a surprise.

Clicking on this ‘notification’ I land on the events page of a club night. Really not something I’m interested in.

Facebook will regard my click as a success, whereas I find this incredibly annoying. Facebook is not my AI diary. In fact, it offers me such predictable content – like the update to being married leads to ads about babies – that I’m simply frustrated.

But now I’m not just bombarded with consumerism, I’m also pressured to be hip and cool and constantly know what everyone else is doing and on top of it best participate in it.

I’m so out of the FB scene, I had to click your link for FOMO, as I had no idea what that was 😉 I JOMO, just like you. I still want to be mysterious and I really don’t want folks to know my every move. Kinda scares me! 🤤